In this pathbreaking book, Matthias B. Lehmann explores Ottoman Sephardicculture in an era of change through a close study of popularized rabbinic textswritten in Ladino, the vernacular language of the Ottoman Jews. This vernacularliterature, standing at the crossroads of rabbinic elite and popular cultures and ofHebrew and Ladino discourses, sheds valuable light on the modernization of SephardicJewry in the Eastern Mediterranean in the 19th century. By helping to form a Ladinoreading public and imparting shape to its values, the authors of this literaturenegotiated between perpetuating rabbinic tradition and addressing the challenges ofmodernity. The book offers close readings of works that examine issues such associal inequality, exile and diaspora, gender, secularization, and the clash betweenscientific and rabbinic knowledge. Ladino Rabbinic Literature and Ottoman SephardicCulture will be welcomed by scholars of Sephardic as well as European Jewishhistory, culture, and religion.